This article discusses seven questions every business should ask themselves before creating their next website, and how these will help them fit into this new world without sacrificing what they do best.
What is the main objective you need to achieve with your new website?
What are your goals? Do you want people to sign up for a membership on a blog or newsletter? Is it important for them to contact your company through the website? What about finding out how much they can spend towards an order online before contacting sales support?
The answer will help determine what type of CMS framework is best suited for you and the features that should come with it.
Who will be the primary users of your website? Is it for children? Adults? Young professionals?
The first step to building a website is figuring out who will be using the site. What age group are they in, what gender identity do they have, and most importantly- what social media networks would best reach them.
If you understand your customers and where they spend most of their time online you can build a website that delivers a more relevant experience to your prospecting customers.
How do your customers access the internet?
When building a new website, you should be sure that your site is optimised for mobile phones. Users may become frustrated and leave your page if they are unable to download the content on their phones.
If you are targeting people using a mobile data connection like 3G, make sure that your site loads quickly and does not get bogged down by heavy images or video content. If your website is too complicated or takes a long time to load, it will be frustrating for users.
If your audience is mostly Western, it may make sense to build an English-language website. If you're more of a global company or are targeting international audiences, then it's worth considering other languages and their corresponding alphabets as well to reach the largest possible audience with one site.
How often do people visit your website?
It's important that your content be dynamic and updated frequently enough so that visitors can find fresh information about topics they care most about while also maintaining some semblance of consistency from page to page.
A blog post should probably be published at least once every week but frequency could vary depending on how often you have new things to share with readership categories like infographics or podcasts might warrant updates more often than say a static page about your company's history.
Are they looking for a product, service, or solution from your company? What are they trying to accomplish and how can you help them answer their need? How will this purchase benefit them in the long term? Who else has had success with these products/services or solved similar problems before? Where did they find out about it (what search terms were used)? Is there something unique about your website content that sets you apart from others?"
Your budget will determine the type of website you can create. If cost is an issue, think about what your business needs most from its website. For example, if SEO is important to you then prioritise this during the content strategy phase.
Having a clear game plan for each stage will minimise the likelihood of errors occurring, in turn saving production time that would be spent backtracking and correcting mistakes
